Sprawl #3 176 x 246 mm, 48 pages Sprawl is a new Nottingham-based indie mag dedicated to DIY subcultures, music and art. Available both online and in print, and taking inspiration from the scrappy punk fanzines of the late 70s and early 80s, inside you’ll primarily find conversations with scenesters old and new. After hours photographer Mischa Haller sets the tone of this third issue, which features a shot from his recently published photobook ‘Not Going Home’—an ode to 90s club culture—on the cover. Inside, he reflects on his early career, the evolution of the dance floor following seismic shocks such as the collapse of communism and 9/11, as well as what remains once the lights go up. Also featured: Sonic Youth guitarist and vocalist Lee Ranaldo, English rock band Ulrika Spacek, graphic artists Steph Dutton and Imarni Boyer-Nugent, Canadian collective Crack Cloud, and more. Words: MagCulture
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- Sprawl music art culture00 MAGAZINE
- YOU MAKEYOU BUY YOU DIE
- (Contents)ISSUE 3 04 THE SPRAWL
- Page 404 THE SPRAWL
- HONESTY Bathing SuitsDJ's Department For Dance Sprawl Collective the carousel nottingham 06.06.26 sprawl tickets:
- Page 62 leeranaldo
- Page 7In the early 80s, lower Manhattan wasn't just a backdrop; it was a collision point. Musicians, filmmakers, painters and composers moved through the same rooms, with figures like Jim Jarmusch and Basquiat crossing paths with bands like DNA and the Contortions. Looking back, does No Wave feel historically significant to you, or did it simply feel like the most honest way to make work at the time? Lee: Looking back, it feels incredibly significant. At the time, it just felt like normal life in New York. Everybody was moving here at that point. It was a kind of flashpoint, but New York has always been a place that attracts all kinds of creative people.
- Page 808 When Sonic Youth formed in 1981, you were drawing from punk, minimalism, free jazz and composers like John Cage, yet you've said you didn't initially realise how 'freaky' the music sounded to audiences. Was there a moment when you recognised that you weren't just part of a scene, but articulating something that didn't yet have a precedent?
- Page 9"Seeing those audience reactions made us realise that what felt normal inside New York was, elsewhere, genuinely radical. In Conversation / Lee Ranaldo
- Page 1010 Ciccone Youth took its name from Madonna, and the project covered her music while also featuring collaborators like Mike Watt and J. Mascis. Thurston described it as a way to 'break down barriers between the underground and those who had graduated to the mainstream'. How do you think Ciccone Youth collapsed those distinctions without compromising the downtown ethos?
- Page 11You've said, 'The greatest fulfilment hasn't come from a particular record or accolade but from simply continuing the path you began in your youth.' In a culture that often demands either constant reinvention or nostalgic repetition, what has remained intact in you since those downtown years, and what have you had to relinquish in order to keep evolving? Lee: I think a lot of the same spirit that animated us when we started is still there. It was basically: 'OK, I'm not really a skilled person. I'm not a skilled musician, certainly. Maybe I'm not a skilled painter, or whatever it is. But I want to do this, and I feel like I have something to say.' I don't think that's changed very much. Along the way with Sonic Youth, we got more skilled at what we were doing, especially through working with open tunings, and we got deeper into the vision we had. That really sustained us.
- Page 1212 SONIC YOUTH
- HE SPRAWLWRITE FOR 13
- Page 1414 ulrika
- Page 15cek Ulrika Spacek / EXPO
- Page 1653.11 36.77
- Page 17Was there anything you deliberately avoided writing about on EXPO― subjects that felt too obvious, too neat or too easy to resolve? Rhys: No, I don't think anything was off the table thematically. There was perhaps more of a focus, as a lyric writer, on looking outwards a bit more. Not in a preachy way - I always write in a way that's a bit of a neurotic discussion with myself - but when the theme of hyper-individualism came to the fore, it felt important not to write in a hyper-individualistic way; less 'woe is me', and more reflections of myself in this confusing, alienating world around us.
- Page 1818 Compared to earlier records, did EXPO feel like a rupture or a refinement, and was that shift intentional, or only obvious in hindsight?
- Page 19At this stage of the band, does making records feel more about asserting creative control than responding to scenes, cycles or prevailing trends, and how conscious is that shift when you're working on new material? Rhys: Well, nothing is made in a vacuum, but I would say that, when working on an album musically, we kind of turn in on ourselves. We do spend a lot of time living inside the record we are making, and often it's quite exhausting to listen to loads of music. But the time between releasing an album and starting a new one is usually a good time to listen to lots of music. It's almost like getting good nutrition. We also find touring an album a great time to share music with each other in the van.
- AND YOUAND >YOU 20
- Page 2222 Most nightlife photography dies on impact. All flash, all vanity, all somebody glaring into a toilet mirror while the room sweats itself dry. It usually starts and ends inside the venue, where the night still exists.
- The Guardian's economics editorELLIOTT century BOB CROW, RMT deputy general secretary, and JULIE WATERSON on Labour and the unions PAUL FOOT and CAROLINE BENN speak on Labour's first leaders prize winning biologist and autho STEVEN ROSE PLUS ENTERTAINMENT AND MUSIC, INCLUDING BRIDGEWATER FOUR TRANFERING FROM THE NATION
- Page 2424 In Conversation / Mischa Haller
- Page 2626 Haller was shooting on film, with a Canon EOS-1N and a 28-70mm zoom: practical, soft enough to hold the mood, and portable enough to keep moving.
- Page 27That same thread runs through Haller's latest book, Not Done Yet, which turns its attention to Glastonbury. Again, not the spectacle, but the space in-between: Glastonbury after the day's machinery has briefly stopped selling itself back to you. "In the early morning hours, the place is kind of upside down compared to the daytime. The stage areas are empty except a security guard and left-over litter from last night. The quiet areas are buzzing with people not done yet. I felt the place and the people that were still around became visible again."
- Page 2828 ZTP
- Page 29OW P W
- CRACK CLOUD30 Peace and Purpose keeps everything close to the source. Recorded in a Calgary basement with a single SM57, it pushes voice, percussion and room sound into the same close, brittle space. Speaking with Zach Choy and Aleem Khan, Crack Cloud trace the record back to first conditions family, migration, labour, memory, survival. As ever, the collective resists fixed definition.
- Page 31PEACE AND PURPOSE
- Page 3232 "You can have goals and aspirations, you can put energy into those aspirations, but you're also part of a larger ecosystem, culturally and otherwise."
- PEACE URPOSAND Both of you come from families shaped by non- Western cultural traditions. When you were younger and finding yourselves through music, did you feel you had to prove yourselves that little bit more? Zach: I think I was probably misunderstood in the way the next person with a similar family dynamic might be. Certainly misunderstood, but my family's always been really supportive. I sort of fell into music.
- Page 3434 Red Mile opened out into vast terrain and almost mythic imagery, whereas Peace and Purpose feels compressed, basement acoustics, tighter arrangements, a much more intimate sonic space. What did that stripping away of spectacle reveal about the core of the music?
- Page 36DEAR FORGET ABOUT IT
- RECOME DISSATISFIED WITH WORKDEAR FORGET ABOUT IT ALL. DISTRACT YOURSELF WITH WORK TRY TO FILL THE VOID WITH EMPTY ACHIEVEMENTS*, IT WON'T MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE. YOU WON'T FEEL BETTER. KEEP GOING AROUND INCIRCLES.GIVE IN TO THE CYCLE. NOTHING CHANGES.IT NEVER DOES. IS THIS AN ACT OF PUNISHMENT OR SACRIFICE? WHICH DO YOU DESERVE?
- Page 3838 Manchester has long thrived as a space built from friction, the abrasion between noise and understated beauty. In that space, Manchester trio Shaking Hand - brothers George Hunter (vocals/guitar) and Freddie Hunter (drums), alongside bassist Ellis Hodgkiss have carved out something quiet yet distinct.
- Page 4040 There is undeniably a strong visual quality running through the record. With songs defined by restraint and negative space, there is something open, airy and architectural in both melody and image. Gentle guitars trace fine lines across weightier foundations, filling the space with a sense of intention.
- Page 41Across the album there is a recurrent friction that sustains the tipping point between peace and collapse. The shifts feel controlled and deliberate, yet for the band it is simply an atmosphere built out of what feels comfortable. "I think it's just a musical dynamic that we're drawn to. We're not really chaotic dudes, especially me, Fred. For me, this just comes through jamming. I must admit I like to switch things up a lot in jams and can sometimes get bored of repeating sections. That helps with the switches between control and chaos. We listen to a wide range of music, which I guess might have given us more of an understanding of control and chaos, from softer bands like Big Thief to the opposite end of the spectrum with Mandy, Indiana."
- Page 4242 The record often feels like winding passages layered into an unconventional form. Again, their technique is less bound by design than one might at first presume. The key to the band's method seems to be sitting back and allowing each other to shine through. There remains an intrinsic trust and sense of intuition, which allows trial and error to dictate a song's final form more than careful mapping.
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- Page 48sheet no. 48/48 issue no.
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Red Mile opened out into vast terrain and almost mythic imagery, whereas Peace and Purpose feels compressed, basement acoustics, tighter arrangements, a much more intimate sonic space. What did that stripping away of spectacle reveal about the core of the music?
Zach: I imagine it creates a different experience for the listener, or at least a different relationship to Crack Cloud. For me, when we're working on an album, it's not like we have a book of tricks or rules we need to abide by, or a fixed set of ingredients. It's a clean slate every time. I could honestly say that about every record we've done.
It's very compulsive, and it's kind of a different genre every time different genres dictated by where we are in life. The sound you're hearing is really just a natural consequence of our surroundings, rather than us referring back to previous work and thinking about how we can augment it. It's very disconnected, very disjointed. Honestly, we weren't sure if Peace and Purpose was a Crack Cloud record. We weren't sure Red Mile was a Crack Cloud record either.
I don't even know what Crack Cloud is.
What would you want Crack Cloud to be?
Zach: I think what I've learned is that it becomes a fickle thing when you try to put a label on it. That was probably a fallacy in the beginning, 'this is our ideology, this is where we come from, this is what we represent'. As you move forward through your time on Earth, things develop more nuance. It's about adapting to those nuances and not getting pigeonholed, while still having a firm understanding of what you believe in.
When it comes to art, though, I think it should be a space for ambiguity, a space to experiment a little more and not get bogged down by labels. Labels are important, and I think having a sense of direction and definition matters in life generally. But with Crack Cloud, not putting a specific label on it has been vital from the very beginning.
Aleem: I think that also relates to gratitude, being present with what you actually have in front of you, not just chasing what you're trying to have. That goes back to family as well. You don't get to choose it, but it's the single most important thing to you.
Zach: My dad always used to quote: 'You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need.'
The 'Safe Room' video stitches together fragments from different eras of Crack Cloud's life so that past and present begin to fold into one another. Do you think of memory as archival, or more as a loop that keeps intruding on the present and shaping identity as you go?
Zach: For me, it's the latter, and sometimes I wish it didn't have such an impact on the present. I think that's probably a relatable feeling. Of course, inspiration is found in memory, but sometimes memory also impairs your ability to move forward.
In a lot of ways, art is a constant dialogue with the past a constant attempt to revisit and understand experience. So what you said is very true. Memory is powerful, but it's also deceptive. The integrity of memory, the relationship between memory and truth, that's really interesting to me.
A lot of Crack Cloud is based on true shit, but it's also about adapting, embellishing, creating fantasy out of lived experience. Experience and memory are inseparable.
Peace and Purpose / Crack Cloud
"We just felt more connected to the spirit than to the machine."
Aleem Khan
The album allows things to remain unstable: drums distort, vocals strain, instruments bleed into one another. Do you hear that abrasion as an aesthetic choice, or as a more honest documentation of the moment the music was made?
Zach: I think both. It was a beautiful experience working with a label, doing the studio thing, having maximum resources. But it felt a bit like imposter syndrome for us, and there was something really cathartic about stepping back into the past, so to speak, and returning to the old dusty drum kit that had been in storage, relying completely on ourselves for everything from engineering to mixing.
We've always had our hands in everything, but there was something radical about protecting ourselves from external influence and trusting that this was the most therapeutic thing we could do in that moment. It was intrinsic to the songs and the conditions in which they were born.
Aleem: Yeah, it was a practice of spontaneity. I'd take the bus in minus-30 winter weather with my guitar and a bass on my back to Zach's place, then walk over from the station. Realistically, it was just trying to capture lightning in a bottle-putting down exactly how we were feeling in that moment.
Everybody is complex, so we're always going through everything at once. For me, it really was just a way to continue finding a purpose on this earth at that point. When you're making art, you're so immersed in it that everything external is almost blocked out. You enter some kind of tunnel vision.
No label telling you to sell X amount. No things being waved in your face. That's just how the business is set up, so no knock to that. We just felt more connected to the spirit than to the machine, if that makes sense.
You've described Crack Cloud as a way of communicating philosophically, but much of the music relies on repetition and fragmented speech rather than a clear narrative. Are you interested in the point where language starts to break down and music takes over the work of meaning?
Zach: Yeah, I certainly feel we've tapped into that dimension in our music. I agree that there was a certain militancy to the earlier recordings we made, but I feel we've really let our guard down in recent years and found a lot of confidence in musicality as a successor to relying on rigid lyricism and all the rest of it.
At the end of the day, we're a bunch of mutts from a small town in Canada. When we go to London and find ourselves in the presence of all these conservatoire musicians, it's incredible to see. When you leave your pond and go out into the world, you realise the ceiling of talent is endless. I think we come from a different place, and maybe some people find novelty in that. I'd like to believe it's no less musical.
Aleem: I really respect the camaraderie those musicians have. We can still have a dialogue, we can still have a rapport, we can still find commonality. The spirit is the same, you know? The look is a little different, but the spirit's there.
Words: Ria Serena